Unzipped by Nicki Reed Read Free Book Online Page A

dark blonde and wavy, blue-green eyes and the I’ll-do-it-my-own-way attitude.
    ‘I wanna be five. Hannah is five.’
    ‘Hannah’s her friend at preschool. She’s not five, she’s lying about her age.’
    ‘Honey, hop off Aunty Al, go and see if we brought your Ice Age DVD with us, it should be in your backpack.’
    ‘I don’t care about age. You’re only as old as the woman you feel.’
    ‘Been feeling many women then, Alex?’
    I choke. Wonder if people can smell BJ. I washed my hair, scrubbed my fingernails, and I’m sure I can. Lady Macbeth has nothing on me.
    ‘Yes, all night. I brought her home as a present for Rob, watched him open her, and when he was done I continued.’
    Ruby catches my eye and makes her did you get a load of that face. While she has my attention she mouths, what’s wrong?
    Shake my head. Nothing.
    ‘Jesus, Al,’ Ruby says. ‘Have another drink.’
    ‘I’m not drinking.’ She pats her tummy. ‘It’s all me.’
    ‘I’m happy Miranda’s not here for this. You are gross.’
    ‘And sexist,’ Ruby says.
    ‘Women can’t be sexist.’
    ‘Are you mad?’ Up a notch on her insolence meter, Ruby pours herself another. The plan is working. ‘Women are more sexist than men.’
    ‘It’s jealousy,’ Taylor says. ‘Ask me. Motherhood is the worst, biggest race you’ll ever get in.’
    ‘At least lesbians don’t have to worry about competing.’ Alex stands her empty glass on the table. Thunk.
    ‘Maybe they don’t worry about what people think. They’ve already done the hard yards. They’re a minority, it gives them strength.’
    ‘I didn’t know you’d thought about this, Pete,’ Taylor says.
    I did for book club (before work became too busy for book club—now I’m my own book club). But book-club thinking is distanced thinking. I hadn’t thought about it properly until the long-way, radio-up-loud, drive home from BJ’s place.
    ‘I saw something on Insight,’ I say. ‘And last year I read The Hours. It had beautiful sentences and, among other things, women loving women.’
    ‘Can’t you say lesbian, Peta?’
    How do I get myself into these things?
    ‘Don’t bother lending it to me.’ Alex proving herself.
    ‘Was it juicy? Lesbians, eh, it’d be twice as juicy.’
    I don’t know where my sister gets her sense of humour. It’s broad and smells like the gutter. ‘God, Ruby, you’re foul. It wasn’t like that.’
    Being with my friends has never been stressful before. What’s happened to me?

    ‘Why are we talking about this again?’ Taylor, asking the question I want answered. She and I had got Mirrie organised in the spare bed and walked back into the lounge room to lesbians.
    ‘There’s nothing cooler than lesbians.’ Rob on his seventh beer. He’s a builder, an Aussie bloke of the fifties mould. Un-reconstructed in construction. Why are we still hanging out with Alex and Rob? School? Knowing them forever?
    ‘As long as they let you watch.’ Shades of golf-trip Mark in my lounge room.
    ‘I’d rather be locked in a hotel room with a lesbian than a poof.’ David at his most normal. Taylor cringes.
    ‘I’m gonna put that on a bumper sticker,’ Rob says.
    ‘I love how you think a poof might be interested in you, Dave.’ That’s Mark.
    Ruby whispers in my ear, ‘His wife can’t stand him.’

    We’re cleaning up. Mark’s emptying the dregs into the sink. The beery-wine swirl down the plughole reminds me of every eighteenth I ever attended.
    I should have known. Mark only helps in the kitchen if he has something to tell me. He’s wiping the bench when I’m informed he has to go to Chicago for two weeks.
    ‘Again? Tell me, Mark. What’s in Chicago?’
    ‘My other wife, Cheryl-Bobb. She’s six foot four and used to be a man.’
    ‘Oh, that’s why you never call when you’re away. Never text, hardly drop me an email. She’s not into sharing?’
    ‘Peta, you know what’s in Chicago.’ His head office, advancement, the