1.
Tuna sandwiches on Wonder White.
The recipe’s out of a cookbook swaddled in a soft cotton bag that we’re handed by a hard-lipped woman at a coffee tasting.
We drink six espressos each to look like we deserved to be invited and shake for the rest of the day.
The sandwiches are bobbed around by art students who have cleared their morning lecture schedule for this. They’re heavy on the mayonnaise.
You ask if I remember which kind of tuna we’re supposed to buy.
This means you’re bored and would probably like to leave soon.
You have many languages and it’s something I’d like to say at your funeral but I’ll be going with you so make a note to leave instructions for somebody else.
Dolphin safe?
I thought that was a scam.
Kind of weird that we’re okay with murdering all the tuna as long as the dolphins are safe.
Yeah. But they’re cuter.
You just answered a lot of questions for me with that.
Did I?
More than you know.
So, am I a dolphin or a tuna?
11/10 dolphin.
Smart girl.
Shall we?
Definitely.
This means “take as many sandwiches as you can and let’s go get married.”
We’ll serve them at the reception.
Shall we?
Definitely.
2.
Ice creams at a public pool on a 30-degree Sunday.
It’s accidentally the busiest day of the year.
The slick cross country pony tail at reception tells you they’re completely sold out of freezer treats.
Sorry.
You point to a couple of Magnums in the back.
What about those?
Oh, they’re for the lifeguards.
You shrug, as if to say “I think we qualify” and “can’t argue with that” at the same time.
Spread on a single towel wedged between strangers who are all wearing the same sunglasses, we make plans to buy the most chocolate-covered and decadent ice creams we can find at the grocer later, to make up for the loss.
What do you think the average pool lifeguard salary is? I ask, absently winding my fingers in your bikini string.
I’m recently unemployed and have begun guessing the net worth of anyone who walks past us in the street.
I’ve learned two things from this practice already – genuinely rich people don’t bother to look rich.
And as soon as you stop making money, you can’t stop thinking about how money is made.
Baby, they can’t afford you, you reply languidly and slip your knee in between my legs.
I squint into the sun, trying to get a glimpse of my golden future that always appears so clearly for you, somehow.
A perfectly golden toddler in a pink one-piece stands in front of me and blocks the sun like a cotton candy eclipse.
I bet you the last ice-cream’s in there, I murmur, pointing to her proud belly.
And I know I say this all the time but I’m really glad we’re not having kids.
You agree by squeezing my hand for 30 full seconds.
With the one that’s free, I drag the IKEA bag over that we stuffed our summer personalities into before we left the house - the PRADA water bottle you got for your birthday, chapstick, sunscreen, the house keys you lost on a run last month that someone who follows you online found in long grass with a metal detector.
We both pull our books out of the bag, untangling them slowly from the rest of the items.
The books signal a respectful reading silence, so you say “I love you” as if to sign off from the conversation for a while.
It settles over us for a few minutes. Maybe ten.
Okay but babe.
Yes? You reply, lifting your gaze dutifully from a bold-lettered book of essays on being a non-binary black woman.
The wage is probably rubbish, right?
Mhmm.
But then there’d be the perks of pool and gym access all year round. And, wait for it. (You do) I’d sell my special reserved lifeguard cones for a 400% markup all summer, then live off the profits.
I smile and wait for you to diagnose me with ADHD again but you just say I love you and mean it, then return to where your thumb is marking your place in the real world.
3.
Hot jam (you) and Nutella (me) doughnuts.
An iced chocolate and a joint at a concert I booked tickets to in May, hoping I’d feel this way about you in November (I do).
You smuggled the joint in your cleavage through bag check and security.
A lonely guy danced in front of us, zooming in to take really close photos of the bass player, who had a costume change for the encore into a 60s pink dream night dress.
I couldn’t blame him for being in love with her.
Turning to quietly apologise for stepping on our toes, he couldn’t blame me either.
4.
A handful each of the vitamin gummies we know do absolutely nothing for our health but taste like they might.
Taken seriously because, since neither of us feel like dying young and famous anymore, that’s how we’ve agreed to take things now.
You remind me to switch to your health insurance and I write a note in my phone with an alarm attached.
That feels uncomfortably corporate, so I delete the alarm.
I tell you that there was a time I had a death wish and now, when I feel like that, I re-read The Virgin Suicides.
It’s one of your favourite films, you tell me, like it’s the first time.
I know, I say, because it isn’t.
So, at film school the other night, the lecturer asked who our favourite directors were.
Who did you say?
Sofia Coppola.
Even though it isn’t?
Yes, even though.
You smile at me in the most absurd moments.
Inside those minutes, it feels like we might have escaped something large and important.
Let’s name our kid Lux, you suggest quite seriously.
I scan you for signs of stroke.
Even though we’re not having any?
Yes, you grin.
Even though.
5.
Slurpees from 7-Eleven on the only other warm day in December.
A large Cola (you) and Sour Grape No Sugar (me).
I like the fake taste of synthetic sweetener. It’s a toxic trait.
It reminds me of the time my appendix burst in hospital and they put me on morphine, which interacted with some molly I’d taken at a concert the night before and I had a full blown hallucination that I was Lana Del Rey.
To convince the nurses, I decided to perform moving renditions of her entire discography on full voice so they knew I was really her.
As we sit in the car waiting for our Szechuan Chilli Cheese Hotdawgs from a new place down the road, I sing to you like I sang to them, high off my face and obsessed with love and diet mountain dew baby, Richmond North.
You can’t breathe and wave at me silently like a manic mime to stop.
I ask you how it feels to be dating global superstar Lana Del Rey.
Does it get lonely? Do you ever feel jealous?
You spit laughter in your hands and rub it in my ears.
I’m weeping and I can’t tell if it’s hay fever or that specific evening joy or the memory already forming.
Our food is called and we can’t eat a single bite.
It’s one of the best meals I’ll ever have.
Love,
TN
loved this one too .. thank-you Tamara xx
Breathtakingly brilliant.💛