Page 119 of Queenslander
Cars and pickup trucks covered the Madonnas’ front lawn and lined the driveway down to the road. She found an open strip of grass to park on in front of the purple Queenslander.
Nev answered the phone. “Congratulations, Dain’y.”
“Thanks, babe. I’m here. Are you by the pool?”
“Yeah, why?
Ronnie loosened her tie. “Did you bring your bathing togs?”
“Should I have?”
“Don’t put your phone back in your pocket. Set it down on a table.”
Ronnie hung up. She took off her suit jacket and leather shoes, leaving them in the truck.
“What are you doing?” Rainbow asked, suspicious.
She took Rainbow’s hand. Someone at the party was blasting Mary J. Blige’s “Family Affair.”
They walked hand in hand up the front steps. “You’re plotting something,” Rainbow said. “You’ve got that look.”
Ronnie laughed. “Want in?”
Rainbow’s face lit up.
Nonna dropped chopped onions into a beef stew simmering on the stove. Ronnie bent to give her a hug. The smell of the stew almost but not quite masked the faint background smell of animal poop and baby formula. In the family room, five orphaned baby wallabies peered out at them from inside wallaby pouches made of old blankets sewn into bags and hung from the ceilings of their cages.
Out back on the veranda, she saw Nev lounging next to Gunni in a white plastic lawn chair, sipping a gin and tonic in the shade while Mattie and the cousins played touch rugby on the lawn. Relatives who had come from the courthouse still wore suits and fancy dresses, while neighbors with rugby shirts and mullets had been pregaming.
Her middle-aged bandmates had come dressed for a classier party, in tasseled loafers. When they saw her they stood.
Nev looked handsome in a pale button-up shirt, Akubra tilted rakishly, looking like a time traveler from the 1920s. “Oi. Proud of you. You’ve worked hard for this.”
Ronnie patted down her friend’s pockets, confirming that they were empty. Nev raised her hands in the air, smiling indulgently.
When Ronnie and Rainbow picked her up, Nev made a delicious little sound in surprise, then passed her hat to Gunni so it wouldn’t get wet.
Giggling, they carried her to the pool, where they hugged her between them and counted down, “3, 2, 1…” before jumping into the deep end with a splash.
Dripping wet, she and Nev made sandwiches at the kitchen bench beside Nonna, who continued concocting her stew according to the secret family recipe.
Nev didn’t have tan lines because she often skinny-dipped in Lake Tinaroo and was a believer in topless tanning. “Totally acceptable in parts of France, I’ll have you know. Nudity only became sexualized and demonized in the past fifty years. Before that it was completely normal for families and friends to swim naked.”
Ronnie spread Vegemite and thin slices of cheddar on whole wheat bread. Nev cut the onions and tomatoes into rounds, laid them on top. Ronnie snagged a can of pickles and a bag of chips.
Wet cotton didn’t keep secrets. Nev was remarkably well-preserved for forty-six, like a cucumber pickled in brine. Flat chest, flat abs, so far she had escaped gravity’s more noticeable effects. No visible scars, neat little feet. In some ways, her compact body looked more youthful than Ronnie’s because she had never been pregnant.
They ate sitting on the glider, watching Rainbow swim underwater from one end of the pool to the other.
Ronnie sipped lemonade through a straw. “If we dated, people would say I was taking advantage of you.”
Nev snorted.
Ronnie glanced at her, then back at Rainbow, supervising with half her attention. Several people around the pool were lifeguards. Blaise blasted ABBA in the kitchen.
Ronnie took another bite of sandwich. “Anyone in their right mind would be attracted to you. You have a dynamite personality and you’d be my number one pick in a bar fight.”
Nev chuckled. “I’m flattered and slightly concerned.”
