Repeat After Me

Chapter 19

So it seemed I had a boyfriend now. I started imagining too. I imagined riverside kisses in central Melbourne. I imagined us together, holding hands, at the opening of the Abandoned Spaces show and how we'd be this superstar creative couple. I imagined collaborating on big and complex artworks together, him wearing a white singlet with paint up his arms, and me wearing denim blue overalls and a thick black headband. I imagined weekend trips to old rural towns and commissions on gigantic wheat silos. I imagined graduating from high school and straight into Asten's arms, cool university parties with my older boyfriend, a gap year in Europe, visiting an urban art festival in Germany, painting a yurt in Mongolia together. Waking up slowly on a Sunday morning to profound kisses and supernatural words. Suddenly anything seemed possible.

I became so consumed with thinking about Asten, I forgot to upload my English assessment and the teacher had to call my parents.

'I did it,' I insisted to mum. 'I just forgot to upload it.'

'You're in year 11, you can't just forget to submit your work,' mum said exasperated. 'It's too important a year.'

'This year is screwed,' I said. I swung on my desk chair, my feet hitting the side of my bed.

'Everyone is in the same boat, Ivy.'

'I'm tired of looking at a computer screen all day,' I said. 'I'm exhausted.'

Mum got me an extension on the assignment and I was able to go back to daydreaming about Asten. My enthusiasm for school was waning, the whole remote learning excitement was now wearing thin. It was hard to stay motivated when I could turn off my camera and mic in a class and pretend I had internet provider problems.

I called my grandmother every now and again to see if she was all right. Mum was dropping shopping over to her, and they'd talk through the window, otherwise, she had few people to talk with. Both of mum's sisters lived interstate and they'd ring her from time to time too. Her hearing was diminishing, so sometimes she'd say yes approvingly to something she clearly hadn't heard. I'd ask her what she was watching on TV and she'd say, 'ah yes, that sounds really good.' I wished she'd had the tech skills to use an iPad and FaceTime, so she could at least have read my lips – she may have understood more. But instead, these conversations were like two different thought patterns running parallel.

After dinner, as mum and dad were tidying up the kitchen, I'd sometimes overhear them whispering, 'they have to get the economy up and running', 'they're saying house prices are going to fall by 30 per cent', 'it's going to be the biggest depression since World War Two' and my stomach would cut corners and tangle in a knot.

In between online classes, Josh would go running or cycling. He began complaining about how he was losing muscle mass. 'It's taken me five years to get this fit and I'm losing it in a matter of weeks. Why can't they open the goddamn tennis courts or the gym?'

The death rate in Australia was remaining low. We were flattening the curve. The tide was changing from fear about the virus to fear about the economic impacts. Everyone was starting to wonder when things would open up again.