Page 2 of Not Your Shoe Size

Kate smiled before glancing around the tram, re-checking that people weren’t reading her mind, seeing the perverted things she did. As before, no one was paying her any mind, but her paranoia and guilt lingered. It probably always would. Her shame at liking dirty things went deep. She still cried almost every time she and Ty played daddy/little girl. One second she craved humiliation, the next it overwhelmed her. It was lucky Ty was so good at comforting her. She was so, so lucky.

Then why are you so distracted?

Kate’s temples throbbed. Her phone buzzed and she snatched it up, welcoming the distraction. There was a fresh message in the group chat she shared with her friends and derby teammates Rapunzel, Casey, and Tambara. The latest entry was from Rapunzel.

Dede’s moving in on Saturday. Her dad’s driving her up in his van. I’m so jealous. I’m jealous of her dad because he gets tosit in a van with her. I don’t think I can handle her moving in. If she moves in, I think I’m going to have to move out. Of the earth. By killing myself. Thoughts? Emotions?

Kate smiled. Rapunzel’s share house had recently interviewed a roommate she swore was ‘The One.’ Rapunzel had been single and indifferent about it for seven years, and she wasn’t handling full blown infatuation well. ‘Freaking the fuck out’ was how Kate would describe it. Her usually sardonic friend kept flooding the group chat with requests for reassurance that Dede would both move in and fall in love with her. Kate started typing an encouraging response, but Casey beat her to the punch.

I can’t believe you’re letting the girl you have a crush on move in. It’s going to totally fuck up the house dynamic. Haven’t you heard of not shitting where you eat?

This was swiftly followed by a message from Tambara.

You’re setting an all-time lesbian record, moving in with someone who doesn’t even know you like her.

Grinning, Kate cleared her supportive message and typed a response.

Leave her alone, you guys! Rapunzel: don’t stress, I’m sure it’s all going to work out. Just try not to scare your new roomie/potential girlfriend/wife.

No replies came, though she could see all three of her friends had read the message. Kate stared at her phone, a familiar anxiety licking at the back of her neck. She was still relatively new to friendship. Her ADHD had isolated her from other kids for most of her childhood and teen years. She’d been the weird kid for so long that, even now, a minor social faux pas could send her into a tailspin. She re-read her message with mounting panic. She meant ‘scare’ with overt displays of affection, but Rapunzel was also physically intimidating; six-foot-three with a waist-length blonde plait, she looked like a combination of her fairy tale namesake and the tower she was held hostage in. Ty didn’t scare easily, but he had almost shit himself when he saw Rapunzel for the first time, something he only admitted after two years and a third of a bottle of whiskey. Kate grimaced at her phone.

“Come on,” she whispered. “You’re not offended, are you, Rapunzel? When we lived together you went to the toilet with the door open.”

Her phone buzzed. Rapunzel had sent ten thumbs up emojis.

Thanks for the support, Katy Cat. Knew I could count on you. Unlike those other bitches.

Relieved, Kate posted a GIF of Maya Rudolph tracing a heart in the air.

God. You *would*think it’s okay to fuck your roommate, Mac.Casey typed.You fucked your boss.

Kate wrinkled her nose. After almost five years it was easy to forget she had met Ty at her first engineering job. Like their twenty-year age gap, it just didn’t seem relevant. But it was eternally interesting to Casey, who aside from finding work romances fascinating, had a bit of a crush on Ty. Kate tapped out a quick response before Tambara could join the fray.

Much like my sex life, my relationship with my FORMER boss isn’t relevant.What time is Dede moving in, Rapunzel?

At ten this Saturday.I’m shitting myself. I think she was flirting during the interview and I think she’s gay from Insta, but what if she hates me? What if she’s secretly straight??

Don’t be stupid,Tambara wrote.No one is secretly straight. Here’s an idea; Samuel’s at his grandma’s this weekend. Why don’t we come around and do brunch? That way we can suss this Dede bitch out and you can look all cool and collected with your friends around you?

Rapunzel posted five crying face emojis.You’d do that for me?

Totally.Casey wrote.I’m in.

Kate opened up her calendar app and checked she had nothing scheduled. She and Ty were due to attend theCrofton Engineering Excellence Awardsthat night, but that left plenty of time to meet Rapunzel’s crush.

I’m down, Kate typed.This is so exciting; we haven’t done brunch in ages!

Right?Rapunzel replied.You straight people and your dogshit priorities…

She had a point. Now Tambara was a mum and Casey was married and living on the other side of the city, their schedules left hardly any room for socialising. They talked constantly, but if it wasn’t for roller derby, they’d barely see each other. Still, that was normal right? That was growing up? Kate glanced up at the Germans bouncing their ball and laughing. They were still together. They were getting along.

Speaking of straight people;Casey wrote,when are you and your former boss going to ‘Ty’ the knot, Mac?I vote soon. I want to be a bridesmaid while I’m still hot.

If anyone had been sitting near Kate, they’d have heard a low growl. This was an old question, one she’d answered many, many times. Her fingers hovered over the reply window as she debated her answer. Her imagined responses grew snippier and snippier until she locked her phone and put it on her lap. Casey was just teasing, but it wasn’t a tease she knew how to respond to with humour anymore. She stared out the window at the darkening cityscape. It was true what people said—one friend gets married, everyone follows. Tambara was the first, then Gilly, then Jenna and Nikki and now Casey, who’d been with Lachlan less than a year. Now almost all the Barbie Trolls were experiencing wedded bliss, and of the remainders, only Kate had a long-term partner.

Casey was the only person who outright teased her about her lack of engagement, but everyone was curious. Everyone asked if she wanted to be engaged, married, have kids, be proposed to. Every New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day and birthday and Christmas there were question mark texts and raised eyebrows. The status quo knocking on her door, asking ‘When are you and Ty going to do The Normal Thing?’

Kate exhaled against the window, raised a finger and drew a heart in the fog. In her head ‘marriage calling’ blared to the tune of ‘London Calling’ by The Clash. Once upon a time she did anything to be seen as normal. To do The Normal Thing. But she’d made her peace, by and large, with being different. She’d accepted her ADHD, her kinks, the fact that estrangement was the only way to deal with her insane family. She’d accepted her weirdness, the way you were supposed to. Like all the self-help books said. But her love for Ty had always felt so conventional. So traditional. When the question of marriage knocked, she hadn’t expected to look inside herself and find a solid, inflexible answer.

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