Page 77 of Begin Again Again

Lara raked her hand through her bob. “Do you mean it, Bethany? Really?”

“Yes!”

Lara flopped back into her chair. “Fine. But I’m all worked up now. I’m going to be swaggering around all day.” She pointed at her baby. “That’s how you act, Angie. Never forget it.”

“That was amazing,” Beth said, still a little flushed. “Why the fuck did you drop out of your theatre degree?”

“Because it was atheatre degree. I might as well have been studying professional mime-ology.”

“Well you deprived the stage of a shining light.”

Lara studied her fingernails.

“And you did a crack job just then,” Beth added. “Byron calls meBethany.”

“Of course, he does. He’s that guy.”

“What guy?”

“A Man. With a capital M.”

“… Isn’t that, like, half the population?”

“No.”

Beth wondered if she should ask if something was wrong or let Lara have her space. She drank a little of her now-perfect tea.

“Nathan’s the strong silent type too,” Lara said suddenly. “All business, you know?”

Beth nodded politely. Nathan was stand-offish but his vibe wasn’t so much‘Mr Darcy’as‘guy secretly poisoning town water supply.’

Lara gazed up at the ceiling. “Yeah, when we met, he was all ‘suit and tie’ and ‘yes sir, no sir.’”

“Like, he was calling other men sir? Orhewas the sir?”

Lara ignored her. “He’s kind of the counterpoint to the football and muscles thing.”

It took everything Beth had not to laugh. She loved Lara and she… something’d Nathan… but he was nothing to write home about. She thought Lara knew that. Thought that after years of dating cokehead directors and unfunny comedians, she’d chosen someone boring with a job and a house. Someone safe. Someone who could best be described as ‘some fucking guy.’ And that didn’t matter because Lara was the Byron in her marriage—the hot, interesting, funny one who made up for Nathan.

Angus hiccoughed, then let out a tiny wail. Lara stood, her mouth twisting. “Not again.”

“Is he okay?” Beth asked.

“Yeah, he’s just really restless. I was hoping he’d sleep; I need to do some work and I’m dead.”

Beth got to her feet. “I’ll make you another coffee if you want to feed him?”

“Good idea. I’ll head into the lounge.”

Lara left and Beth made them both black coffee with a teaspoon of gum tree honey. Funny how for a moment there, while Lara was pretending to be Byron, Beth had forgotten all about Angus, the way she used to forget Lara was married to Nathan. Sometimes she felt like she and Lara were still the same people they’d been in Auckland. But they weren’t. Beth thought of Sal and all the bright laughing people at the drag show. How many would end up where they wanted to be in ten years? How many would even still be trying to make their dreams a reality? Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her dressing gown pocket.

Morning, Horoscopes. How’d you sleep?

She beamed at her phone, then looked around, double checking Lara hadn’t witnessed her ridiculousness. The kitchen was still empty. Heart pounding, she re-read Byron’s message, insides inflating like a tube man. Two, clean, beautiful sentences. She read them again, chasing the inner rush of chemicals. Her melancholy mood was gone, torn away like sunlight through cloud.

“Hey, girl!”

Beth shoved her phone back into her pocket as Lara walked in holding Angus. She squinted at her, then shook her head.

---