Perfections (22 page)

‘Loki?’

‘Still here.’

‘Can you stay with me?’

‘Antoinette isn’t home yet. I should wait up.’

‘Just until I fall asleep? Please?’

She feels the mattress sink beneath his weight. Shuffles over to give him room. He is a barricade, solid and warm. She curls herself against his back, presses her cheek to the ridge of his spine. ‘You really think I’m like you?’ she whispers. ‘You really think Ant made me?’

‘What do you think?’ he asks. ‘What do you feel?’

Jacqueline swallows. Dizziness is giving way to a headache, a dull pulse of pain taking roost behind her right eye. She buries her face into Loki’s back, inhaling the strange, not-quite-sweet scent of him. She thinks about lights and lines, passing through and crossing over. About Loki, about the connection that sparks between them, brighter than desire. Simpler as well.

It’s impossible.

Impossible seems to be in flux these days.

‘I’m scared,’ she says. ‘I’m scared of what comes next.’

— 16 —

Idiot, An
toinette tells herself as she sneaks into the apartment. It’s not like her mother will be waiting in the kitchen with arms crossed or that Jacqueline gives a damn in whose bed she decided to spend the night. Nevertheless, there’s an element of relief in finding the place silent and empty, the door to her sister’s room still closed. She puts on the kettle and searches the cupboards for camomile tea, thinking she might flake out on the couch for a while, try to catch up on some of the sleep she didn’t get staring at the ceiling of Jackson’s bedroom for half the night. Antoinette still isn’t sure what happened with that.

The sex wasn’t awful, exactly, just
weird
. Mechanical and disconnected, at least from where she was lying. Jackson more than enthusiastic, his mouth wet and eager, his hands skilfully persistent, and it wasn’t like she didn’t
want
to, not like the thought hadn’t slunk across her mind once or twice before last night – those full lips and honey-smooth skin, those eyes stolen straight from a Manga comic – but all the same it felt . . . not wrong, not bad, just
weird
.

You okay? You want to stop?

Jackson uncertain, anxious even, as he picked up on her vibe, maybe wondering just how wasted she actually was, running desperate calculations of responsibility and regret, and so she kissed him, moaned and arched her back and pulled him deeper into her, wanting him to finish and be done before she lost control of herself.

Before she started to laugh.

Afterwards, he kissed her neck, one finger circling her nipple until she told him that it tickled.

You sure you’re okay? You were pretty quiet.

I’m fine.

Short, clipped words too much like her mother would have spoken them, too much like Jacqueline even, and she forced a smile, told him that really, it was good, it was fun. Stopped herself just short of
we should do this again sometime
, giggles catching like burrs in her throat, as he stroked her hair like it was the mane of some horse he’d just dismounted –
good girl, have a sugar cube
– before he kissed her on the forehead and got up to take a piss.

She should have gotten up herself. Dressed and called a taxi, written the night off as a Bad Idea. No, not bad, that was hardly fair; just weird. But so much easier to stay where she was, to keep that smile on her face as Jackson padded in and slipped beneath the blankets. Her wolf now fat-bellied and fed, shrunk down and squeezed back into his boy-skin. And so she stayed, and must have dozed off at some point because one minute the room was dark and the next the sun was streaming through the gap in the curtains, and as she swung her legs out of the bed, Jackson mumbled something in his sleep and she stopped and stared at him, ran her eyes over the muscled curves of his shoulder, remembered the rhythms of him moving inside her.

And felt nothing. Nothing at all.

Antoinette carries her tea into the living room. There’s a dress draped over the couch, slinky red satin with corset-style ties at the back and a sequined pattern of black roses swirling over the bodice. Gorgeous, but too small for her to even consider trying on. More Jacqueline’s size but like nothing she could ever imagine her sister wearing. Too revealing, too sexy, the colour far too bold. At the Halloween party she and Paul threw a couple of years ago, her sister turned up as Jackie Kennedy, elegant pink two-piece perfect down to the final stitch and button, pill-box hat slanted just-so, and a look of priceless horror on her face when Antoinette suggested they finish her off with a spatter of fake blood.

It’s Halloween, Jacqueline!

It’s replica Chanel, Ant. Do you know how much this is worth?

She hangs the red dress over one of the chairs then settles down on the couch with her tea. Her eyelids scrape like sandpaper, her limbs feel leaden. Out in the hall, the door to her sister’s bedroom opens, but it’s Loki who walks into the living room, face creased with sleep and hair dishevelled.

‘Hey,’ she says.

‘Hey.’ He shuffles over to the couch, sits down beside her. ‘Where’ve you been? I was worried about you.’

‘Some of us went out for drinks after work.’ She hesitates, unsure of the boundaries between them. The tension in her belly, the perpetual weight of the Loki-stone that most of the time she’s able to ignore, shifts and eases. This close to him, the tug of it is stronger but, paradoxically, less insistent. ‘Sorry, I should have called or something, but I lost track of time . . .’

‘You crashed on someone’s sofa?’

‘Something like that.’

Loki lays himself down, rests his head in her lap. ‘You don’t need to lie to me, Antoinette. I’ll understand if you were with someone.’

‘Sorry.’ She combs his ink-black locks with her fingers, untangles the snarls gathered near the nape of his neck. ‘It wasn’t anything. I had too much to drink.’

‘You don’t have to explain either.’

Apologising once again, she separates his hair into strands, begins to weave them into loose plaits. ‘Hey, did I hear you coming out of my sister’s room just now?’

‘It’s not like that.’ His tone slightly defensive but tinged with a genuine and unexpected tenderness. ‘She was feeling pretty rotten last night. I don’t think that much vodka agrees with her.’

‘Jacqueline got drunk?’ Antoinette’s never seen her sister wasted before, never even known her to be on the wrong side of tipsy. ‘Was that a good idea? I mean, so soon after her . . . her seizure?’

‘She doesn’t think it was a seizure.’ A curtness to his voice, a tone that – with Paul – always signalled the need for time out, for a change of subject at least, and Antoinette decides to take the hint. For all of Loki’s hard-fought points of difference, some things have stayed very much the same.

‘What’s with the dress?’ She nods at the chair opposite.

‘I saw it in a shop window, thought it might cheer her up. It’ll look great on her, don’t you reckon?’

‘Um, yeah, but it’s not really her style. I’m not sure she–’

‘Maybe you don’t know your sister as well as you think.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘She’s more than you imagine her to be, that’s all. More than she imagines herself to be as well, which is the real shame of it.’

Antoinette stares at the dress she still cannot picture her sister wearing. All that glossy red satin, the sequins and ties, the bodice that would surely plunge too deeply for Jacqueline to dare. ‘Hang on.’ She frowns. ‘
When
did you get the dress?’

‘Last night. Jumped a tram out to Fitzroy. There’s this bar, they serve absinthe from a fountain right in front of–’

‘Jacqueline went too?’

‘Nah, just me. I think she wanted to be alone.’

‘Alone with a bottle of vodka. For godsake, Loki, you promised me you’d keep an eye on her. You
promised
.’

‘She didn’t need keeping an eye on.’ He sits up, too sudden, and Antoinette winces as the plait she’s working on catches and pulls, leaves a couple of loose strands wound round her fingers. Loki scowls and rubs at his scalp. ‘Nothing happened, Antoinette. So, she got a little wasted, so what? She’s not a kid.’

‘But she never gets drunk. This isn’t like her, she isn’t–’

‘Isn’t what? The sister you want her to be?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Antoinette.’

‘No, really, what the hell has this got to do with–’

‘Antoinette,’ he repeats, louder, eyebrows lifting as he nods over her shoulder and she turns in her seat, follows his gaze across the room to where Jacqueline now stands in the doorway. Though
stands
too upright a word for the way her sister slouches against the jamb, one hand all but digging into the wooden frame, the other cinching her pink kimono tight like it might be stolen from her at any moment, like they might be the ones to steal it.

‘Don’t stop on my account,’ she says, regarding them with eyes bloodshot and sunken. ‘While you’re at it, perhaps you should both decide what I’m allowed to have for breakfast.’

Not that Jacqueline wants breakfast. The thought of eating any kind of food is enough to make her stomach recoil. Her head pounds. A blunt, unmitigated throbbing worse than any of her recent migraines. She almost regrets leaving her bed. Wishes she’d simply rolled over after Loki’s getting up woke her. Buried herself in pillows and blankets until the world returned to normal.

‘You look awful,’ Ant says. She’s already up and crossing the room. Loki as well. Guilt flickers in their eyes.

‘I’ll live,’ Jacqueline tells her. ‘What was it you two were discussing? Something about me needing a chaperone?’

‘Only last night,’ her sister says. ‘I was worried about you after your–’ She glances at Loki. ‘After you collapsed, or fainted, or whatever it was. I didn’t think you should be alone, you know, in case . . .’

‘In case?’

‘If it happened again. If no one was around to help you.’

‘And would it? Happen again?’

‘How am I supposed to know? You’re the one who’s been keeping it all state-secret for god knows how long.’

Jacqueline glares at her sister. ‘
You
don’t get to lecture
me
about secrets.’

‘Sorry, what? I tell you
everything
. There’s not a single thing–’

‘You never told me about Loki.’

‘You weren’t
here
. It was kind of hard to explain over the phone.’

‘You didn’t even try.’

Loki steps forward. ‘Please.’ Steps between them, his expression anxious. Almost childlike. He takes Jacqueline by the hand. Rubs his fingers over her knuckles the way he rubbed the bones of her neck during the night when she woke to nausea and dread. ‘You need to tell her,’ he says.

‘Tell me what?’ her sister demands. ‘What
else
is there?’

‘As though you don’t already know.’

‘Lina.’ He called her that as she heaved over the toilet for the second time, his hand moving in circles over her back.
Lina, my Lina, Lina Lina Lina
. She’s still unsure about it. The sound is beautiful, the cadence subtle. Light. It feels like another woman’s name. A woman she could never be. ‘Lina,’ he says again. ‘Tell her.’

‘What is it?’ Ant asks. ‘What’s wrong?’ Her voice shakes. With anger, yes, and hurt. But also confusion, a very real and fearful bewilderment.

Jacqueline pauses, uncertain. Loki squeezes her hand.
Trust me
. And she does. Trusts him, trusts the connection that draws them together. The connection she can no longer dismiss as ordinary desire or lust. Moreover, she trusts what she feels within herself. And what she doesn’t.

‘Am I . . .’ She pauses, her tongue dry and stilted. ‘Am I like him? Did you make me like you made him?’

For a moment, Ant still looks confused. Then her face clears. ‘Did I
make
you? You can’t seriously think that.’

Jacqueline squares her jaw. Waits for an answer.

‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ her sister says. ‘You’re older than me.’

‘Loki’s
older
than you. So to speak.’

‘He’s been here all of five minutes. You’ve been here my whole life, Jacqueline. Bloody hell, this is absurd.’

‘I only have your word for that.’

‘What? No, we grew up together, we went to the same schools. There’s not a single month of my life we haven’t seen each other, talked to each other at least. Come on, all those years? When was I supposed to have–’

‘Loki remembers things. Things he wasn’t here to remember.’

‘That’s not the same! Loki, tell her how crazy this is.’

He shakes his head. His gaze darts between the two of them. Uneasy, torn.

‘Don’t force him to choose sides,’ Jacqueline says. ‘It’s not fair.’

‘Sides? There aren’t any sides to this; there’s just what’s real and what’s batshit fucking insane.’

‘What about the fendlies?’ Loki asks softly.

Ant stares at him. ‘What?’

‘The fendlies,’ he repeats. ‘You don’t remember making
them
.’

‘That’s different. That’s . . .’ Ant squeezes her eyes shut for a couple of seconds. ‘I kind of remember, just not . . . it’s not very clear.’