Housemates

Chapter 16

Because Mia had mentioned it especially, Ellie had a crisis about what to wear.

Obviously.

She started in shorts and an old rugby jersey, the jersey from the year she’d played social touch after work. It was what she’d been planning when she’d first woken up, and was lying in bed, thinking. The jersey was completely sensible, perfect for moving boxes, but also suited her quite well. She’d never entirely worked out why, just the colour, or the bigness of the collar, or something like that. The shorts were good too, running shorts that went with the jersey, just loose and long enough they looked like they ought to be sensible, but actually weren’t at all.

She put both on, and looked at herself, and decided shorts the were okay.

The shorts were okay, but the jersey didn’t work.

It just didn’t work at all.

She’d always thought it looked fine when she was playing touch, but now, perhaps looking at herself a little more critically, she wasn’t sure. The fabric was odd, some kind of densely woven synthetic that was both thick and stiff. It stuck to her chest, and fell past her waist, and made her look kind of square-ish.

She’d never noticed that before. She’d probably never cared before.

She’d never put it on planning to impress someone before, she supposed.

She told herself not to panic. Mia had already seen her dozens of times in whatever she just happened to have on. Mia probably didn’t care what Ellie wore, so Ellie didn’t need to worry.

Ellie cared, though. She cared a lot.

She tried a couple of other tops, but decided they were too nice for moving boxes. She didn’t want anything getting dirty or torn.

She thought for a moment, but decided she had to be sensible. Because it was sensible to be sensible, but also because Mia had teased her.

Ellie knew she was obsessing far too much about one small thing that Mia had said. Especially when Mia was chasing her, and apparently liked her how she usually was, and probably had just been teasing, or trying to help, and hadn’t meant to cause this crisis.

Ellie had the crisis anyway. It only took five minutes.

She found an old singlet in the end. She wasn’t completely happy with it, but it would have to do. She kept the shorts, because it had to be shorts, because Mia looked at her legs, and she put her hair up, because a ponytail was sensible, and Mia wanted her to be sensible. She thought for a moment, then decided against make-up, because not wearing any ought to be sensible as well, although she did her eyes because she couldn’t stand not to.

She decided she was ready. She already had some on, but she sprayed herself with body spray again in case moving got sweaty, then went outside to sit on the front steps and wait.

Mia turned up in a ute.

Ellie didn’t realize it was her at first. The ute was big, an actual truck. Not a practical ute either, all old and dusty. It was shiny, and clean, and had metal wheels and extra bars along the front, and behind the cab.

Ellie started looking the other way, avoiding noticing it, so she didn’t get shouted at or anything.

Her phone rung. She answered, and Mia said, “It’s me in the truck.”

Mia wound the window down, and waved too. As if she knew what Ellie had been thinking.

Ellie sat where she was, and looked for a moment. “What the fuck is that?” she said in the end.

“A truck.”

“You have a truck?”

“I have friends with trucks.”

Ellie thought that over. She hung up her phone. She stood up, and went over to the road, and said, quietly, “Is this like some thing because you like women? That they have trucks?”

She said it quietly, into the window, in case Mia didn’t want her business shouted around. And because Ellie didn’t want Mia’s business shouted either, right outside her own house.

Mia looked completely startled for a moment, then started making the face she made when she was trying not to laugh.

“It’s not, is it?” Ellie said.

Mia shook her head.

“I’m being a dick, aren’t I?”

“No,” Mia managed. “Hop in.”

Ellie went around the front of the truck, and got in. By the time she had, Mia wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t obviously trying not to, either.

“So where’d it come from?” Ellie said.

“I know geeks,” Mia said. “You smell good.”

“Thank you. And geeks. Um, so?”

“Guy geeks. They have cars like this sometimes.”

Ellie hadn’t known that. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, kind of. Overcompensating, I guess.”

“Like lesbians?”

Mia looked at her for a moment, then said, “Yeah probably.”

“Do you want one.”

“Nope. Mark does though. He just hasn’t yet.”

“Oh,” Ellie said, a bit surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

Mia put the truck in gear, and started driving. They were both quiet again, like they had been the day they went to the market, but this time the silence was far less uncomfortable.

Ellie was getting used to Mia and her way of just keeping quiet when she didn’t have anything to say. It wasn’t unsettling any more.

Mia drove for a while, then said, “So just to warn you, this might get weird. These two, they’re both lovely people, but they fight, a lot.”

“Okay.”

“Like in public. Like in the street, or a restaurant. Anywhere.”

Ellie nodded.

“Just to warn you. I’m assuming they will be while they move. Now they’re in the habit. And breaking up, too.”

“Yeah,” Ellie said. “I would.”

Mia grinned.

“I’ll just go outside or something if it gets nasty,” Ellie said. “Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, me too. I just wanted to warn you. So it didn’t scare you or anything.”

“Scare me?” Ellie said, surprised.

“It gets kind of intense sometimes.”

Ellie didn’t know what to make of that, so she just nodded, and went back to watching Mia drive.