Page 41 of Power Moves
‘I guess not,’ I mutter. There was so much love at uni, but there was also a lot of hate.
I turn away from the bar to remove Chappo from my line of sight and survey the ballroom. It’s buzzing with chatter and the clink and slosh of champagne flutes. The staff circulate the room stacking schooner glasses into towers on their shoulders while a middle-aged DJ in a Hawaiian shirt bops behind his decks. Remi is quickly whisked away by a great-aunt to spin around the room like a sequinned firefly.
As I watch her squeal and air-kiss and tug down the hem of her sparkly dress, I can’t help but get all sentimental. She’s sohappy. She’s marrying her best friend, and I know that Tyler is an amazing guy. I feel like a grandmother. I want to take Remi and Tyler by the shoulders and say,Hey kids, you done good.I want to tell them I’m proud of them; I want to remind them of when Tyler was a baby-faced punk who thought a mani-pedi was a tapas dish. I want their best years to be ahead of them, but at the same time, I don’t want them to forget where we started because I never want to lose them.
‘Ready for a dance, Ms Hatton?’ Archie asks, appearing from thin air—no easy feat considering he is so ginormous.
I clasp my champagne flute to my chest, still engrossed in the scene before me. ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it yet.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
I shrug. I’d love to dance—Imissdancing—but there’s no way I’m dancing with Archie, even as a joke. Everyone here will make too big a deal of it. Also, the dancefloor is still too socially distanced right now. I’ll make my entrance when it’s at capacity so no one will gawk at my sprinkler-heavy dance moves.
My gaze catches on a girl with long blonde hair who is teetering on a pair of spiky orange heels near the cheese pyramid. I’ve never seen her before, whereas I know pretty much everyone else at the party.
‘Who’s that?’ I ask Archie.
‘Tyler’s cousin, Kristina. She’s just arrived from Norway to study here for a semester. She’s looking for a place to live, if you know of anywhere.’
I nod sagely. Of course he already has the lowdown on the hottest girl in the room.
‘Can you believe they’re getting married?’ Archie asks.
‘Yes,’ I sigh. I remember helping Remi choose her outfits when they first started hooking up, and how she’d text me from his room asking me to bring her a change of clothes so she didn’t have to do the walk of shame. How one time I brought her a dinosaur onesie and we all laughed so hard that Remi had to run to the communal toilets before she peed herself—still wearing her silver dress from the night before.
‘Remember when he serenaded her in the 7-Eleven using a sausage roll for a microphone?’ I ask.
‘I also seem to remember you did back-up vocals.’
I smile. ‘And dance moves.’
We both chuckle quietly and I close my eyes, instantly transported back to that fluoro-lit convenience store, bordered by racks of Polly Waffles and Picnic bars, Chicken Crimpy Shapes and Tim Tams. Overpriced confectionary I couldn’t afford but could always justify if it was past 2 a.m.
When I open my eyes, Archie is looking at me. ‘What?’ I demand.
‘Nothing.’ He turns back to the dancefloor.
‘Don’t be judging me because of the dress.’
He looks at me, one corner of his mouth creeping upwards. ‘For your information, I love the dress. In fact, the memory of you running up the stairs in the green dress may actually surpass my other favourite memory of you, which is of that time you won the hotdog-eating competition.’
‘That was an act of feminism,’ I mutter, which is the truth. In the history of our uni residence, no woman had ever won the hotdog-eating competition before. I was trying to make a point.
Archie’s smile broadens. ‘It was very noble.’
‘It wasn’t worth it.’
‘I always wondered whether it made you sick.’
‘It did,’ I grunt. It also led to Chappo christening me Deep Throat. As in:What time is dinner, Deep Throat? Have you seen the tute schedule, Deep Throat? Can you pass the Vegemite, Deep Throat?One time, as I was going into an exam hall, Chappo yelled out, ‘Blow jobs won’t get you extra marks, Deep Throat!’ Everyone laughed—even people I didn’t know—so I had tosmile along as though I didn’t care, and it killed me because Ididcare. But I didn’t know how to play Chappo’s games. I could only live on campus in our uni residence because I’d snuck in on a means-tested scholarship. Chappo—because of his family and sporting pedigree—expected doors to be opened for him by velvet-gloved butlers.
Mum always said that when I walked off the court after a game, she shouldn’t be able to deduce the result.Don’t mope if you lose and don’t strut if you win.But Chappo was always strutting. Despite being the most obnoxious person I’d ever met, Chappo was a born winner, and regardless of how hard I tried, I could never beat him.
I smooth my dress over my hips. ‘I’m gonna go find some food. Later, Archibald.’
Archie tilts his head, confused. He has no idea why I’m suddenly irritated, and that frustrates me even more. Archie wasfriendswith Chappo. He had a million opportunities to tell him to shut up, but he never did. No one did. Not even me. And that’s what irks me the most. By saying nothing, I let him win again and again and again.
I should have tried harder.
